ABOUT EGC

EnglishGlobalCommunication

In terms of native speakers, English is the third most important language in the world. But its undeniable importance today comes not from its 350 million native speakers, but from the constantly expanding community of non-native speakers, which now numbers over 1,500m according to some estimates.

Increasingly, non-native speakers use English amongst themselves in business, politics, law enforcement, academic research, education, music, the arts, sport, and travel. This new role, with English acting as a language of global communication, or lingua franca, obliges us to re-think what learning English means. EnglishGlobalCommunication takes on this challenge, and offers services that respond fully to the 21st-century reality of English as aLingua Franca (ELF).

ELF is most noticeable in pronunciation, where the goal is international intelligibility as opposed to proximity to a native-speaker accent. Intelligibility is achieved by being competent in the key features of English pronunciation, and by being able to understand the many different English accents of today’s global professionals. Helping users of English to understand and be understood is a key part of what I do through EnglishGlobalCommunication.

Robin Walker

I have worked in English Language Teaching since 1981. For over twenty years I taught English at the University School of Tourism of Asturias in Spain. In 2007 I left the School and founded EnglishGlobalCommunication.

My main interests are pronunciation, teacher education, and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). I’m a member of TESOL-SPAIN and IATEFL, the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. I was Vice-president of TESOL-SPAIN from 2003-07, and the editor of Speak Out!, the journal of the IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group from 2008 to 2015.